


Pale Rocks

by yukasayu



Category: Shingeki no Kyojin | Attack on Titan
Genre: M/M, Past Child Abuse, Past Rape/Non-con, Underage Prostitution
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-08
Updated: 2019-07-08
Packaged: 2020-06-24 17:25:34
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Rape/Non-Con, Underage
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,123
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19728322
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/yukasayu/pseuds/yukasayu
Summary: A short drabble on poverty, survival, and recognition. Written in 2016.





	Pale Rocks

Levi was scared. He was scared of many things—the darkness lying within his heart, the darkness lying within the hearts of others. He had grown up on the streets so he knew how vile and disgusting humanity truly was. This knowledge was why he was rarely surprised by the acts committed by those around him and it had saved both him and his comrades on many occasions. Most people assumed he didn’t care about anyone else because of his harsh personality but the truth was that he was just too tired of losing the people who were important to him. His heart had grown prickly and shielded in order to protect himself. So he pretended not to care when, in truth, he cared the most of anyone. Erwin knew this and that was why he had been assigned as the titan brat’s guardian, because the higher ups would think he didn’t give a shit, which was exactly what they needed in order to get away with a slight amount of freedom regarding the child, but the boy would actually be taken care of—though in a way that he may not necessarily notice or think of as kind. But he would be taken care of, that was Levi’s job and he always got the job done.

However, they hadn’t accounted for Mikasa. They hadn’t expected her to be so protective of the brunette and Levi thought it was strange. Most other people thought she was simply very attached to the boy because of the debt she owed him or because she felt like his older sister, but the captain thought differently. He had seen many things during his childhood and the way scum treated children had been one of them. While Levi felt like more of an older brother figure to the boy, despite how he acted most of the time, he wasn’t blind. He could see that Eren was attractive, and not only Eren but Armin and Mikasa to. He was loathe to admit it, but they were all strangely decent looking. Eren’s eyes were particularly striking, changing colors in the light and depending on his mood. Sometimes they appeared golden, sometimes sea green, sometimes sky blue. Beautiful. 

Levi knew what happened to beautiful children without protection. He had witnessed it, he had lived it. The short raven had no proof of his theories but he had a gut feeling and he was good at observing people. Learning how to read those around you and catalog their facial expressions and body language was key to staying alive, so Levi had become quite exceptional at doing so throughout his life.

This was why, when he saw Mikasa nearly rip a soldiers arm off for standing a little too close behind Eren in line, he knew. This was why, when he saw Eren very very subtlety flinch at having his spine touched by Hanji during a basic routine checkup, he knew. People who didn’t have past trauma didn’t try to hide a flinch from basic human contact. People who weren’t traumatized in the way he knew Eren had been weren’t that good and that practiced at hiding their pain. An animal that’s never been hunted doesn’t feel the need to run from a hunter, they don’t even know what a hunter is. An animal that’s been hunted once knows to run. An animal that’s been hunted many many times—too many times—learns to calculate it’s moves in order to stay alive. 

Levi didn’t want to have his suspicions confirmed but when he walked in on Eren in the shower one day, they were. The brunette didn’t have scars unless they were from before he first transformed. After that first time his body always healed without leaving a scar, Hanji had tested and proved that theory. This was why he knew that the scars on Eren’s thighs and the soft skin of his but were nothing knew. They weren’t from combat, and it was nearly impossible to get scars like that from combat anyway. One doesn’t get a name carved into their thigh on accident. 

When he noticed Levi, the raven expected him to panic, he expected him to try making an excuse or to talk his way out of it. But he didn’t do that, instead of panic and fear there was resignation. He startled when he realized what Levi had seen but then he become calm. Too calm really, the elder had never seen him so calm in the entire time he knew him. Eren simply sighed, said ‘oh’ in the softest voice possible, and turned back to his shower.

Levi thought maybe he hadn’t noticed or maybe he simply didn’t want to talk about it, but when the brunette finally finished rinsing off he turned to the older man, who had since begun his own shower, and stared. The raven finished his own shower quickly and then reached up to turn off the handle, before facing Eren and looking at him with his own unsure stare.

“We needed money. We needed shelter. I’m the oldest boy, we weren’t going to let Mikasa do it. She could get pregnant and…”

For the first time since Eren had noticed Levi, an expression crossed across his face besides the calculated calm façade. It was brief and Levi wasn’t entirely certain what it meant, but it hurt to see. Levi knew he was thinking about what had happened, and he regretted ever triggering Eren into thinking about it. That had never been his intention and despite Levi’s own cold façade, seeing the younger boy hurting hurt him to. He empathized with the brunette. He felt like he should say sorry but he knew that was the wrong thing to say so he gulped down his words, the bitter taste of them sinking all the way to his stomach to lie there, as heavy and dense as a rock. 

Levi said nothing, and neither did Eren. The brunette looked like he desperately needed to say more but also like opening his mouth one more time would be impossibly hard, like he might drown in his own pain if he acknowledged it, like if he opened that chasm of darkness he might fall in, and he might never come out.

The brunette nodded once quickly and jerkily, like he was trying to encourage himself, and then shakily gasped in a few deep breaths, turned around, and left. Levi wanted to call out to him, but it wasn’t his place, so he turned the shower back on and started scrubbing, If there was one thing he knew how to do, it was clean, though he didn’t think he’d ever be clean enough and neither, probably, would Eren.


End file.
